[lug] slocate.db.stf

[Hugh Brown]

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Ben wrote:

>
> >> Everyday for the past week I've been getting this e-mail from
> >> cron.daily:
> >>
> >> /etc/cron.daily/slocate:
> >> updatedb: fatal error: The temp file '/var/lib/slocate/slocate.db.stf'
> >> already exists and does not appear to be a valid slocate database.
> >> Please remove before creating the database.
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm running debian sarge and I swear I didn't change anything. I just
> >> started getting the message. There is
> >> no /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db.stf on the harddrive now, and when I
> >> run /etc/cron.daily/slocate from the command prompt, I don't get any
> >> errors. The slocate database is being updated, so maybe I can ignore
> >> the message. Any ideas what's going on?
> >>
> >
> > Could be more than one copy of updatedb trying to run at the same time.
> > Check your crontabs and cron logs for duplicates.
> >
> Ok, so a duplicate cron entry sounds like reasonable cause. The .stf is
> a temp file that goes away when the slocate cron finishes, which is why
> I don't see it normally, but it exists when this second cron comes up
> and then gives me that error. So how can I test this? All the entried in
> /etc/cron.daily/* run sequentially, right? The only related cron I see
> is find.notslocate. I made it non-executable, but I'm getting the same
> error. I checked /etc/cron.d/* I don't see anything slocate related. My
> logs don't show anything helpful about cron -- just that cron.daily ran.
> And no idea why this would have started all of a sudden. If it were a
> program crash or something, shouldn't I be able to find the stf file. If
> a duplicate entry for cron, maybe now it is taking longer to run and
> bumping up against the second cron and before it ran faster and they
> didn't overlap in time?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben
>
>

Another possibility is that updatedb is running so slowly that another one
gets fired off before the previous one is finished.  I'd grep -r updatedb
/etc/  and see what it turns up.  You can also edit the script in
/etc/cron.daily to echo a start and stop time to a file in /tmp

Hugh